NFL 2025 Survivor Pool Journey - Mapping Out The Season And Your Week 7 Pick
Still. Here.
Week 6 in the books and if you tailed me, you've earned yourself a Week 7 date with your cardiologist for, once again, another nail biter. Indianapolis came through, but tried very hard to allow the decimated Cardinals to steal one on the road. But it does feel good to survive a game in which we depended on Daniel Jones. Just imagine if that game didn't go our way. What would we tell our past selves if we had to explain before the season started we would be out because we depended on Daniel Jones?
Anyway, Philadelphia was the whammy of the week. Here's how things played out pool-wide for me. I figure things should be directionally similar for you.
Crazy to think had Justin fields connected on a 9-yard pass on 4th and 8, the Jets would have been able to win on a field goal while compiling a (would have been) -1 total net passing yards on the day.
As a quick reminder - here's who we've played so far:
I hit the pavement Monday morning reworking the rest of season road map. Excited to see if it pays off. 315 remain out of 1,107. 28% still alive. Including your truly. And hopefully you. Let's grind some options for Week 7
STEELERS (-5.5) at Bengals
So the general rule of thumb survivor pool hardos will tell you is to fade divisional games. I'm not so resolute on all that, but definitely will be for a Thursday Night game. You don't have to look back too far to see how that last played out. That'd be the Philly whammy last week.
And I think the Bengals might have a little fight now with Flacco. Them winning a game is no longer going to be the shock we'd have thought with Browning. Speaking of Browns, let's not get too excited about Aaron Rodgers taking them down last week. This is a very sad Cleveland team that is keeping my Tuesday sad stats blog in business once again.
Anyway - not much else to say here. I'm a Bengals fan Thursday Night because I'm staying away from this.
CHIEFS (-11.5) vs Raiders
This is one of those examples where I don't think you need to worry about it being a division game. But something about this game makes we want to stay away. Geno Smith has been throwing the ball to the other team a lot. But to depend on that is a lot to ask. And while the Chiefs appear to be back after beating a great Detroit team, these teams do have a history of getting in the mud. It's the largest spread of the week by a wide margin. The Chiefs just coming off a national game with a commanding win over those Lions has me convinced this is the Green Bay of Week 6 pick. I'd rather keep KC in my pocket and hope the NFL does NFL things.
BEARS (-5.5) vs Saints
Ugly win in the sloppy Monday Night game at Washington. Caleb Williams missed open receivers either with errant balls or errant eyes. In fairness, he had some dimes gone to waste too. The touchdown to Udonze on that laughable penalty and the awful drop by Zaccheaus for what would have been a huge gain backed up deep. Defense looked much better though, and Caleb is doing an amazing job in both avoiding sacks and not turning the ball over. Then again, this might just be a team to keep in our bench.
The Saints haven't been nearly as bad as we all want to think either though. Rattler has a 6/1 TD/INT ratio and is pretty much playing to the best of his albeit limited ability. I do like this play though. The only other game to potentially play the Bears after going through things is Week 15 at home vs the Browns. We could consider them in Week 15, but we get Eagles at home for the Raiders. Hmmm.
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PATRIOTS (-7) at Titans
Drake Maye is playing lights out. An almost perfect Sunday afternoon in New Orleans last week, he now gets another cupcake road game in Tennessee to play the "we ass" Titans. The only issue I can see here is the fact that the Titans fired Brian Callahan and now get the spark of a new coach perhaps giving the players something to play for. We see this happen. Teams quit and make themselves look a lot worse than they actually are. But they look to be without Calvin Ridley this week which makes it hard to imagine they'll improve much.
I was going to refresh my memory on new coach records while starting in season, but I ran out of time. I recall doing this last year though, and it wasn't as good as I thought it might be. This one is a very viable play. Not many options for New England moving forward.
PACKERS (-6.5) at Cardinals
We have the Packers in our pocket here, and the Cardinals are decimated with injuries. I don't hate this at all seeing as how most people will certainly be on KC this week. The only thing is I don't love Jordan Love on the road.
THE PICK!
PATRIOTS at Titans
This one came down to the Bears and Patriots for me. The Bears are showing a positive trajectory, but I still think Caleb Williams is missing a lot of open receivers and the Saints are playing up to their opponents every week. It's not that I have more faith in the Patriots (who have a suspect defense). It's that right now, I have more faith in the Titans.
So that's the pick. Here we go. The rest of season road map update:
See you on the other side. Or maybe not.